“There’s kempany an’ kempany. This yer kempany ud turn your hair white.”
“Ah!” I said, sniffing a story.
“Yes, ’twould that. There were some baboons away over by the big kloof. A family party—ole man, wives, middle-aged, an’ pickaninnies. They came there for the Kaffir plum crop, an’ were mighty lively, not to say noisy, three weeks ago, when they began to drop. I yeared ’em dropping off.”
“Off the trees?”
“No; offun this mortal spear. As they dropped off in the dark, the others howled an’ whooped like mad. It was a tiger that did the droppin’.”
“A tiger?”
“You hold on to him. At last the ole man were left alone, an’ he had a mighty anxious time looking all around at onct, while he hunted for grubs for fear the enemy ’ud spring on him. He used to come over yonder in the lands for kempany. I’ve sot here on the door-step an’ he sot over there, glaring at me from his little grey eyes. Arter a time we got to know each other, an’ I found out he went to sleep on the roof alongside the chimney.”
“He was the company?”
“One on ’em. An’ seein’ him about reminded me o’ the Kaffir plums, so one mornin’ I took up the can an’ went away off to the big kloof where the plums are red an’ juicy. Well—my boy—that ole man baboon, he up an’ come along with me, an’ when he found I were goin’ to the kloof he jabbered most like a human. I could see he were excited—anybody could a seen that—an’ I sot down on a rock to argy the point with him. He wouldn’t argy, but he started back for the house. Well, you know me, when Abe Pike sots out to do a thing he does it, an’ arter I had smoked two pipes, I resoomed my way, jest as unconcarned as you are, for all the plain meanin’ o’ the baboon that I should go away home. When he saw that I were sot on it he came along at a canter, with his hind-quarters slewed round an’ the hair all standing up on his neck. He looked ugly, but ’xcept he lifted his eyebrows very quick, he said nothin’, and went along very quiet, with the same anxious look on his face I had noticed prev’ous. As I went into the kloof he swung into the trees, an’ kept along overhead. When we came to the thick o’ the wood, he going along all the time scarcely moving a leaf, he made a soft noise, an’ looking up I saw him bobbing his head up an’ down to make you giddy. I know by that he saw somethin’, an’ I jes’ slipped behind a tree to take stock. I yeerd a yawn, an’ what d’ye think I see thro’ the leaves stretched out on a rock, not twenty foot away?”
“A black fellow?”